Alan Vorse15 days agoWhile some of the choices are questionable, and I would put Nels Cline at number 1, I think this list is great! Come on! The usual lists are always 1.Hendrix 2.Clapton 3.Van Halen...etc. Lets get some fresh blood in there! Any list that has Vernon Reid, Fripp and Belew, John McLaughlin, Zappa, Sonny Sharrock, Blood Ulmer, Robin Guthrie is awesome!Reply3 replies

I am glad to see a list break free from the calcified shackles that most lists suffer from...Eric Clapton is the most overrated musician to ever do a line of coke.Reply1 reply

andrew jackson11 days agoAgreed. Clapton is so overrated its not even funny. He played a little fuzzier than some of his contemporaries, and played some cool guitar solos in Cream, a band whose roaring engine was Jack Bruce. He then became an adult contemporary artist and master of the clean tone elevator music guitar solo. His music is the audio equivalent of a polo shirt tucked into jean shorts accompanying black socks and sandals. Nothing about Eric Clapton has rocked in about 40 years.

i'm kind of curious what the process to arrive at this was ... like whether there was a ballot or whether it was an afternoon's spitballing

i enjoy the list, tho. tho it does kind of remind me of wire's 'in praise of the riff' thing from a few years back - which was all 'hey wouldn't it be awesome to have edgard varere on the same list of BORIS, wouldn't that be great and redefine our categories, that would be so awesome of us' - is how i feel about the presence of the odd improv dude or guitar composer here

my problem with this list is that they're trying to have it both ways by insisting that they celebrate these less famous dudes, but then still include trad guitar hero dudes like Zappa, Neil Young, McLaughlin, Iommi, The Edge, etc.

whiney under your own 'say something nice too if you're gonna critique' rule i complimented the hell out of the guitarist infographic in the issue, sorry if that wasn't your baby and this 'lol skrillex' stunt was. but it's not like croup and aero and strongo and m@tt and elvis telecom were all giving you high fives for this and then i broke up the celebration.

Have always been intrigued by his lack of prowess and totally rubbish tone. He was great.He seemed to just jam along in any key, in a way that made me think he didn't even know what key he was in and certainly his scales were unique.

Ever since I heard My War back when it was released, that twat influenced my guitar playing. What he was doing sounded so random, angry and sludgy,.It was always the easy way out and I only played on stage 7 times and my career was over.

Have always been intrigued by his lack of prowess and totally rubbish tone. He was great.

I think I'm putting my finger on why I never liked Black Flag that much, one or two songs aside, and Ginn especially. Maybe even why I love some classic Amerindie and am left totally cold by some.

no, i just mean he was part of a scene/era in which chops were not a must

I've actually been thinking about this. I guess it depends what you consider to be his scene/era. I really like several bands on Ginn's own label - Sonic Youth, Husker Du, fIREHOSE, Meat Puppets - all of whom seemed to place some value on musicianship. I'd probably say that in some cases they were better musicians, at least as instrumentalists, than many mainstream rock bands of that time. I realize that most of these were 'indie rock' and not 'hardcore' bands (at least as far as the records I listen to go). But, while I get that chops were not a must, even some other hardcore bands seemed to have placed a greater emphasis on tightness, e.g. Minor Threat, whom I also dislike but for different reasons.